RE: Lojbab on subject/object

[Chris Handley <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!CHandley>]

Hi

I just picked up something as it flowed past me on the Net and I
feel that there is *still* (%^} a concept lacking in Lojban.

John Cowan writes

> The movement of the Earth around the Sun, for example, has neither
> origin nor destination, and so it is not true that "la terdi cu
> klama"; but the word "litru" (roughly "travel"), which involves
> only a traveler, a route, and a means, would be suitable.

The Earth orbiting the sun, indeed any planetary body orbiting its
primary, hardly has a 'choice' of route, nor even really a means.
What about binary and triplet stars? What about our spacecraft esp
the Voyagers. (I am not concerned about self-propelled UFOs and the
like, but objects that 'coast' their paths largely defined by the
gravitational influences if any large bodies they come close to.

Orbiting is relatively easy, specify the secondary, the primary and
(as subsidiary places the radius and eccentricity). Binary and
higher order systems, where the masses are approximately equal pose
a bit more of a problem, and as for Voyagers - a placeless (pun
intended) 'verb' along the lines of 'coasts' or something similar.

Chris Handley                                    chandley@otago.ac.nz
Dept of Computer Science                       Ph     (+64) 3-479-8499
University of Otago                           Fax     (+64) 3-479-8577
Dunedin, NZ